TV View; MORE ARTS, MORE TALK ON CABLE

By John J. O'Connor

Published: March 14, 1982

As cable television continues to expand, there's more of everything -more movies, sports, news, talk shows, toney cultural showcases and kinky sexual excursions. At times, the resulting hodgepodge can be disconcerting. Last Sunday evening, for instance, a subscriber to Manhattan Cable TV could have followed an hour of ''Strumpet City,'' a handsomely produced Irish television dramatic series being offered on CBS Cable, with a half-hour of public-access Channel D's ''Let's Talk Dirty'' that fully lived up to its title.

There already are, to be sure, pronounced signs of strain in the cable programming picture. Even the ''premium,'' or pay, channels are having difficulty finding the kind of material that will prompt viewers to part with an extra $10 or $15 every month.

Like the pay channels, the network-affiliated culture channels are relying heavily on the familiar device of the rerun. CBS Cable and ABC's ARTS operation are awash in repeats.

After being in operation for almost a year, ABC's ARTS has finally managed to snare a New York City outlet. Beginning this evening, its offerings will be carried nightly on Manhattan Cable's Channel 10. Changes have been made in the original format, which continues to play for roughly three hours each evening. Instead of a weekly host imposing a broad theme on the proceedings - Olivia de Havilland, for example, gushing on about Paris - there will be a permanent host, Gene Klavan, the morning-radio personality, whose presence will be more modest and, it's hoped, practical.

More significantly, the schedule will reflect an accelerating move into original programming, much of it featuring new American dramatists. When ARTS got underway last April, the programming catalogue was top-heavy with productions acquired, when prices were relatively low, from European sources. Herbert A. Granath, vice president of ABC Video Enterprises, was not pressured to turn as quickly and as industriously to original programming as was happening at CBS Cable. But ABC cannot coast on old European productions forever; eventually, more money will have to go into original programming. Some of the initial results can be sampled in the next few weeks.

Tonight's ARTS schedule begins, at 9, with ''Ailey Dances,'' a collection of three Alvin Ailey dances assembled by James Lipton Productions. Taped in a theater before a young and very enthusiastic audience, the production is narrated by Judith Jamison, the consummate Ailey dancer who went on to Broadway fame in ''Sophisticated Ladies.'' The ballets are ''Night Creatures,'' set to a Duke Ellington composition; ''Cry,'' a spectacular solo created for Miss Jamison and now powerfully executed by Donna Ward, and ''Revelations,'' Mr. Ailey's signature piece, which, with its traditional gospel music and splendid imagery, still brings down the house with undiminished vigor. This video recording is a bit ragged around the edges, cutting off arms and feet with seemingly casual abandon. It does not have the polish or clear sensitivity that public television used to get from the ''Dance in America'' team of Merrill Brockway and Emile Ardolino (Mr. Brockway is now producing for CBS Cable). But, in sum, ''Ailey Dances'' does convey a sense of why Alvin Ailey is an important American choreographer.

This is followed by ''Rattlesnake in a Cooler,'' a one-act play written by Frank South and, as it was last fall in an Off Broadway production, directed by Robert Altman. Except for a musician named Danny Darst, who wanders briefly into the one-room set singing some of his own country songs, this is a one-man show featuring Leo Burmeister as a chronic loser who was born in Lexington, Ky., but always yearned to live in the great Southwest. Swigging periodically from a bottle of bourbon, he recalls how he went from being a doctor to bumming around a Colorado dude ranch to killing a state trooper. There is no such thing as betrayal in his universe, only hit-and-run incidents. This is a remarkable portrait of a would-be good old boy, and Mr. Burmeister's performance is riveting as he worms his way in and out of a wide range of supporting characters. Mr. Altman doesn't let the extraordinary tension flag for a moment.

(Next month, another one-acter directed specifically for ARTS by Mr. Altman, ''Precious Blood,'' will bow on Tuesday, April 6. Guy Boyd and Alfre Woodard are featured in a script by Frank Smith.)

Among the other notable pieces coming up on ARTS are plays by David Mamet and David Henry Hwang. Mr. Mamet's ''Dark Pony,'' paired with a very short piece entitled ''Reunion,'' has a grown daughter visiting the father she hasn't seen for more than 20 years. He is a recovered alcoholic, still bearing the traces of a boozey charm. She is sympathetic but not sentimental. They skirt each other warily, slowly making painful connections. The performances by Michael Higgins and Lindsay Crouse are harrowingly on target.

Mr. Hwang's play, ''The Dance and the Railroad,'' produced by Joseph Papp, was originally presented at the Public Theater. Set in California in 1867, it tells the story of two young Chinese immigrants working on railroad construction. One is eager and ambitious to move onward and upward in his adopted country. The other devotes himself to the rigorous training of the traditional Chinese theater. The mountaintop setting is mistily eerie. The stage movements are intricately choreographed. The acting by John Lone and Tzi Ma is admirable. Emile Ardolino, the director, has fashioned a thoroughly haunting production.